Nigeria, May 5 -- As Nigeria pursues long-overdue reforms in classrooms, connectivity, and human capital investment, we must also reckon with a quieter but more enduring challenge, namely our diminishing relationship with books, and the gradual erosion of reading as a cultural habit, a form of self-formation, and a gateway to deeper thinking. It is in this widening gap, between what we build and what we nurture, that the loud silence around reading in Nigeria becomes most deafening.

Books are still seen by many as an academic requirement rather than a personal or societal asset. Reading, for too many children, and indeed adults, is something one must endure to pass an exam, not a practice to be nurtured, enjoyed, or claimed. In this, the...